FTSE fall ignores brighter outlook

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Markets climb a wall of worry, it is said, so there should be no surprise at the setback seen yesterday. The Nikkei 225 had risen by 51 per cent since the end of January and so some kind of correction was overdue. The same applies to the FTSE 100, which had risen by almost 15 per cent since the start of the year.

The irony is that these falls, aside from concerns about some weak Chinese manufacturing survey data, were mainly in response to comments from Ben Bernanke that the US Federal Reserve could ease back its monetary stimulus.

It is understandable that the construction of an air-polluting,
noise-blighting £22 billion third runway to turn Heathrow into the world’s
pre-eminent superhub caught the eye, but the Davies report into airport
expansion also made another radical suggestion: that — third runway or not —
Heathrow should start acting like the UK hub that it pretends to be